The Meta Quest 3, codenamed Eureka, is set to revolutionize the world of mixed reality headsets. According to Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter for Bloomberg, the Quest 3 boasts a sleeker and lighter design than its predecessor, the Quest 2. Although the price of the Quest 3 has not been confirmed, it is rumored to be more expensive than the Quest 2, which currently retails for $400. However, it is still expected to be significantly cheaper than the Quest Pro, which launched last fall at $1,499.99. In this article, we take a closer look at some of the key features and improvements of the Meta Quest 3.
Features and Improvements
One of the most significant improvements of the Meta Quest 3 is its sleeker and lighter design. The Quest 3 is far lighter and thinner than the Quest 2, making it more comfortable to wear for extended periods. Meta VR exec Mark Rabkin explained that the main aim of the design team was to create a headset that feels better, easier, and more natural to wear. The Quest 3 achieves this by allowing users to walk effortlessly through their house, put anchors and things on their desktop, take their coffee, and stay in the headset much longer.
The Meta Quest 3 also boasts a second-generation Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 chip, which significantly improves performance overall. The Quest 3 also includes more sensors inside three pill-shaped areas that contain four cameras, two of which are color cameras for passthrough video. The improved system for adjusting the lenses’ inter-pupillary distance (the distance between the eyes) can be adjusted using a wheel while wearing the headset, rather than having to take it off and adjust the display manually.
However, the Meta Quest 3 will not feature eye-tracking, which means games cannot use foveated rendering, a feature present in Sony’s PSVR 2 that adjusts based on where a player is looking and allows the system to concentrate processing power on the graphics in those places and pull back elsewhere.
The redesigned controllers of the Quest 3 ditch the Quest 2’s rings, and the depth sensor in the middle of the device could improve AR performance compared to the Quest Pro’s camera-only approach. Although the Quest Pro was expected to get a depth sensor, it did not make it to the final version.
Finally, the Meta Quest 3’s pass-through video is described as “almost lifelike,” a significant improvement on the Quest Pro’s AR mode, which was described as “murky in low light, washed-out or flickery in bright light, and sometimes luridly saturated in between” in a previous review. The improvements in pass-through video come mainly down to how the headset’s cameras handle light and color, as Gurman did not think it looked noticeably sharper, despite rumors of a higher-resolution display.
The Meta Quest 3 is a significant improvement on its predecessor, the Quest 2, and boasts a sleeker and lighter design, improved performance, and an improved system for adjusting the lenses’ inter-pupillary distance. Although it will not feature eye-tracking, the Quest 3’s pass-through video is almost lifelike, making it a promising improvement on the Quest Pro’s AR mode. While the price of the Quest 3 has not been confirmed, it is expected to be more expensive than the Quest 2, but significantly cheaper than the Quest Pro. Overall, the Meta Quest 3 is set to revolutionize the world of mixed reality headsets.
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